Thursday, June 26, 2014

Move.

My husband was lying so still that he looked like a statue. I reached across the pillow and brushed his cheek with the tip of my finger. His eyes fluttered and then I saw his head shake just enough to let me know he was alive. Something about that made me love him even more.

"Good morning. I love you," I said in my head. Then I snuggled him super tight in the most obnoxious way ever. He let me for a few moments but it was early. His body language after that gave me that sleepy person's signal to move.

I walked into the kitchen and sat at the big wooden table. The house next door, with its windows that face ours, was quiet and dark. Not because of the oppressively early time that the clock was reading, but because no one was there. That day that I saw them loading up a truck, it surprised me. I didn't know this family as well as those before them. And obviously not well enough to know that they were about to move.

I made coffee and listened to the radio. Talk radio at first on NPR, but then I switched over to Pandora on my iPad for something uptempo. At which time I decided to shake my hips and bust a move.

I quickly dressed and headed out of the door. I talked on the phone while driving that day. One of my friends has been struggling with a love issue. Trying to decide if it is time to move. On, that is.

I wasn't sure. Or, at least, I just listened because what I think isn't so important. And not my move to make.

Another friend is coping with the aftermath of a stroke. A significant one that snatched away the ability of a previously dominant side of the body to move. I visited my friend in the hospital and on this day my friend would be discharged to a rehab center. And my friend was a good sport about it all but I could tell that this was not originally a part of the summer plans.

"They're going to move me over there in a few hours," my friend said.

"Okay," I replied. "You okay?"

"I think so."

And when my friend said that, I was surprised at how well those facial muscles could move. Already.

"Wow." I said that word somewhere in between other words of encouragement. "Your face. The right side. I can see it move."

And so I recorded my friend's voice with my iPhone and played it back. And that voice did sound good. So good that it moved my friend to tears. Which did the same to me.

Yes, it did.

The nurse walked in and started doing the things that she needed to do to get my friend ready to move to the next place. "Do you need me to move out of your way?" I asked. She shook her head no. So I just stayed where I was on a chair smiling at my friend. And didn't move.

I headed on to Grady a little bit later. The R&B radio station was on and the personalities were talking and talking and talking. This time they were discussing Justin Timberlake.

"That white boy can move!" the guy said.

"He suuuuuure can," the woman personality said back to him. "Chile, he suuuuuure can. Woo Lawd!"

And I laughed a little because I agreed with what she said. Intonation and all.

When I was walking into Grady I saw somebody getting a parking ticket. "I was just about to move!" the flustered lady exclaimed to the ParkAtlanta person. She was fumbling with her keys to hurry up and get into her car. "Oh come on!"

And for once the ParkAtlanta person stopped. Stopped with that little electronic ticket thingie and didn't move. "Hurry up and move that car."

Which that very relieved lady promptly did.

Just before I walked into the hospital I saw this man sitting in a wheelchair out front. He was youngish and appeared to have been in a trauma of some sort. He looked perplexed because he had a cast on his leg and also his arm and was trying to move the foot rest down on the chair.

"You need some help, sir?"

"Yes! Would you mind pushing down this foot rest?"

And so I reached down and pushed it flat with my hand. It required more elbow grease than I expected but eventually I got it to move.

"Thanks," he replied.

"No problem." I started to walk off but he asked one more favor.

"Would you be willing to give me a light? I can't work this lighter with my arm in this cast. My finger don't move right."

"You're asking me to light your cigarette?"

"If you don't mind."

I cocked my head sideways and furrowed my brow playfully. "Dude."

"No?" he said with a chuckle.

"Dude."

And we both laughed as he used one arm to move his chair closer to the "designated smoking area." Where I was sure he'd get a light for his cigarette.

In the clinic there were lots of patients waiting. I picked up my pace because with all those people we were going to have to get a move on.

"Ready to make your big move to New York?" I asked a graduating resident. She was heading up there to do a fellowship.

"Yes and no," she said. Which I understood completely. It's hard to move.

That afternoon I straightened up my office. Which really means I organized one stack of paper in one area. Only to move it to another area. On the same desk.

My computer keeps freezing up. When I open too many applications, the little arrow thingie just decides it doesn't want to move. It happened two times that day, so I took that as a sign close up shop. And move and groove on out of there.

When I got home, Harry was watching television on the living room couch. He was watching his shows that aren't my shows but I plopped down next to him. "Do you want me to move?" I asked.

"No," he replied.

And I just smiled.

A text came through to both of us at the same time. It was Poopdeck showing us what the kids are doing. This time they were running on a track. "I'm making sure they move!" Dad said. And from that little video clip, that was definitely true.

Later that evening I climbed under the covers in bed. I reviewed the extraordinary parts of this seemingly ordinary day and let them move me. Harry twitching his cheek. The fact that I'd likely get new neighbors soon. Dancing in my kitchen. My friend at a pivotal fork in the relationship road. Another friend learning to walk and write again. Justin Timberlake and his unusual amount of rhythm and soul. Somebody, for once, being let off of the hook from a parking ticket. A young man who had experienced a bad accident yet who still felt well enough to ask a doctor to light a square for him. A busy clinic and a resident transitioning to another part of the country. An unruly Mac computer in a cluttered office and a husband who watches too much reality television but whom I love anyway. And lastly a father who is now a grandfather that knows how to not only text, but also text video, of the magical times he is having with his grandsons.

I rolled on my back and stared at the ceiling. My body and mind became still. I didn't move.

That is until the sun burst through the window the following morning. A new day. With new extraordinary ordinary. I smiled big and wide. And began to move my body because I could.

Welcome to Atlanta.

"Becoming is better than being." - Carol Dweck

Who me? I'm just glad to be here.

Honestly? I write this blog to share the human aspects of medicine + teaching + work/life balance with others and myself -- and to honor the public hospital and her patients--but never at the expense of patient privacy or dignity.
Thanks for stopping by! :)

What's the point?

"One writes out of one thing only--one's own experience. Everything depends of how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give."

~ James Baldwin (1924 - 1987)

"Do it for the story." ~ Antoinette Nguyen, MD, MPH

Details, names, time frames, etc. are always changed to protect anonymity. This may or may not be an amalgamation of true,quasi-true, or completely fictional events. But the lessons? They are always real and never, ever fictional. Got that?